Warwick has a rich fossil
record:Quite a few mastodon skeletons
and other prehistoric remains have been found in the black dirt.

The very first recorded
mastodon remains found in North America, a set of weighty molars that
seventeenth-century colonists mistook for the teeth of human giants, were
found in New York State.

More on Peale’s mammoth,
found near Newburgh in 1801, and discoveries in Montgomery:

http://www.tomca.org/mastodon/montgomery_mastodon.html

Mammoth discovery in Chester
in 1817:

http://www.hrvh.org/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/chs&CISOPTR=308

“Glacial Lake Fairchild” is
a name for the huge lake that covered the Drowned Lands and adjacent areas
after the glaciers retreated.It
honors Herman Leroy Fairchild,a
geologist who studied and mappedthe
Pleistocene glacialperiod in New York
State in the 1920’s and 30’s.The name
appears to have been given by scientist Gordon Connally. (information
provided by Dr. Guy Robinson).